Design and Development of an Integrated End of Line Testing Platform for Electronic Control Units

Electronics play an important role in today's home appliances. Many electronic control units (ECUs) are used to make everyday life and home activities more enjoyable. Fault detection and identification are the characteristics of high performance and quality production systems in checking and monitoring programs. These systems are designed in a way that allows real-time detection and error detection to realize these qualities. Errors are indicated by diagnosis, and the diagnosis identifies the root cause. ECU is a real-time microcontroller-based system equipped with multiple sensors and actuators for collection of data and control. The primary purpose of the test is to reliably detect non-functioning units; however, the ultimate goal is to reduce the rejection rate and increase output. More and more quality tests are being replaced by 100
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automated testing by human operators. Accurate identification of the key characteristics and features of the device under test is required to identify the overall quality, perform quick measurements that provide useful data, and obtain the correct pass/fail result. Without separating the electronic and electrical systems, ECU firmware allows diagnostic and self-detection results to be read at the end of line testing station. This system is implemented by connecting the “test tool” to the UART line provided by the ECU. The design of the PC-based integrated test platform is described in this article, ensuring that ECU development is not delayed by the absence of an actual tester at the end of the production line.